Solomon: Morey has a new cast but a familiar plot line

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In his run as the Rockets general manager, Daryl Morey has remade the roster almost as many times as Sylvester Stallone remade Rocky.

Like Stallone’s saga, Morey’s Rockets have featured a talented loudmouth, a huge foreigner from a communist land and a ferocious fighter who clearly needed counseling, which, thank goodness, eventually transformed him from Clubber Lang into World Peace.

Despite the new gargantuan, nearly court-length high-def screen at Toyota Center, Morey’s “Rockets VI,” as it were, is not expected to be a blockbuster. In fact, this might be the worst Morey movie of all.

Patience is more than a virtue, Rockets fans, it’s a requirement.

In desperate need of a star, of the super variety, that is, Morey went out and signed Jeremy Lin, who has been on the cover of GQ and is the subject of an upcoming “60 Minutes” profile.

Yet the Rockets remain in desperate need of a star.

Lack of on-the-court experience — rookies Terrence Jones and Royce White, perhaps the Rockets with the most star potential, aren’t yet old enough to purchase adult beverages — is a problem.

Yet Morey’s most impactful free agent signing in the offseason is probably Omer Asik, who didn’t log 1,000 minutes in either of his two NBA seasons.

The Rockets will have trouble scoring points night after night after night, as their young squad learns what the NBA is all about.

So, yeah, this could be a rocky season for the Rockets. Interestingly, the stated goal for the team hasn’t changed: make the playoffs.

That will be hard to do with the current roster, but if you like a glass-is-half-full-of-champagne take, Morey believes for the Rockets to make the playoffs without making a major trade, one of their young players will have to take a huge leap forward.

There is no negative to be found in such a development.

If a current player becomes a star that would help attract the next star that the team would need to be a championship contender.

“Our goal hasn’t changed,” Morey said. “When a team loses their franchise player like Yao, even when it goes well, it takes a very long to get back to being a championship contender. We’re trying to shorten that process and at the same time be competitive.”

Morey isn’t trying to remake the wheel. With approval and actual orders to do so from on high, he’s trying to invent it.

There aren’t any examples of a championship contender that lost its star player, as the Rockets did when Yao Ming was forced to retire, remained competitive and in short order returned to contention with another star player.

Thanks to only one playoff series win in 15 seasons, a sensible person would argue that the Rockets haven’t been championship contenders since the pre-Yao days. But to be fair, when Morey took over he was looking for complementary pieces to go with All-Star talent. Now he is looking for All-Stars.

Every move he has made in the last couple of years has been done to improve his chances of landing that elusive, almost mythical star. And, once again, Morey tells us that he is closer to that than ever.

He will have maximum cap room at the end of the season that can be used in trades or free agency. He has a balanced and deep, though relatively unproven, roster that should draw some trade interest. The depth is important because there isn’t much difference between the starters and the reserves, the actors and the stand-ins. And he has a possible high lottery pick from Toronto in his back pocket, thanks to the Kyle Lowry trade.

Oh, and if these Rockets are as bad as Rocky V, they could land their own high draft pick.

Will you continue to support the movement? Are you that patient?

Morey, who interacts with fans more than any general manager, and the Rockets certainly believe so. Otherwise they would have followed the Astros’ bottom-out rebuilding plan.

“We have an intelligent fan base that sees young players to get behind and a plan to get back to championship contention,” Morey said. “Anything can happen, but I don’t see (fans turning on the team). Part of why we’re trying to get back
to a champion level with this method is, frankly, what some of the other teams in town have gone through when it went bad.”

So once again, Morey’s Rockets, similar to some of Stallone’s efforts, should be more mediocre than terrible. And while you may feel you have seen this flick before, at least the cast is different this time.

And Rocky is still alive.

Listen to The Rush with Jerome Solomon and Dave Tepper weekdays from noon-2 p.m. on ESPN 97.5 FM.